


Drained

by tjstar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Animal Death, Childhood Trauma, Hemophobia, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Rehabilitation, Roommates, it's a deer i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:15:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: “Do you want to… Talk about it?”“No.”





	Drained

_The car stops with a dull sound of tires getting ripped; an animal is crying, and Josh clamps his palms over his ears to muffle the roaring of the sirens. All he hears now is the beating of his heart, these painful thuds like raindrops. There’s a dent in the hood, crimson streams trickle down the windshield. A gunshot penetrates the night, then two more, and then the animal stops crying._

Josh wakes up.

The thuds are here, the fear is; after years of therapy and medication his nightmares have stopped being that lucid. This is a remission, but his childhood is chasing him, reminding him of his true essence. Figments of Josh’s imagination usually leave him dejected and sick; nasty aftermath stays there until he finds a distraction. Josh is thirsty and dizzy on the brink of passing out, moving carefully not to stumble over his joggers; he massages his temple, taps at the vein that pulsates there.

The bulbs on the the kitchen ceiling throw dim rays of light onto a lonely silhouette at the table, back hunched and head low. Josh’s condition is not bad enough to consider his roommate a creep; the top three things he’s aware of, though, is that his name is Tyler, he’s got a voice of a twink-preacher, and that he is an insomniac.

“Hey,” Josh fills the glass in the sink.

Fleece hood casts shadows over Tyler’s face.

“Tough night?”

“Kind of,” Josh turns the faucet off. He left his anxiety meds in the bathroom, this makes him even more vulnerable. “Have you slept?”

Tyler closes the book in front of him; the slap is too loud.

“No. I’m leaving.”

Josh doesn’t say _wait,_ just watching him go.

They’ve got their shitty jobs with irregular schedule, and Josh is not a stalker. Tyler might thrust his ukulele into his bag and be gone for days, then barging into his room and spending hours upon hours there. And he’s always wearing that little amount of black clothes he owns.

Josh’s brightness is meaningless.

 

***

They’re not living together, they’re paying the rent together. On their fourth month of being business partners — Tyler has been calling them like this since the day one — Josh’s fragility crawls out of its hole.

This is one of the mornings when the time flies too fast and their alarms don’t have any manners. Tyler is sleepy, he keeps wiping his jaw with toilet paper, but the wound on his chin fills with blood again — like a hungry mouth spitting red venom. The handle strikes into Josh’s ribs as he slides down the door to Tyler’s room.

“Hey? Hey, what’s wrong?”

Tyler’s bloodied hand is looming in front of Josh’s face; Tyler’s life line is too short. Josh is not a chiromancer.

“Man, please, get up, what’s going on —”

Tyler touches Josh’s shoulder, he marks him with a disease, and the lines on Tyler’s palm turn to the cracks in the windshield. Animal is crying in Josh’s head again, it’s mutilated, local hunters are going to shoot it dead.

Josh is freaking out.

He manages to take a few deep breaths before his chest gets locked in a trap of pure panic. There’s the blood on Tyler’s neck, on Josh’s t-shirt, it might get into his pores and destroy him out of the inside. This is just a shaving cut, but Tyler’s throat might be slit as well, red fountain might be gushing out of the gash.

Tyler squats down, red droplets dot the floor in between his knees.

Josh might spew out his morning coffee right there and then, but his system just shuts down instead. The side of his head smacks against the hardwood, the ringing in his ears gets merged with Tyler’s worried shout _oh crap._

 

***

Josh doesn’t peek out of his room for two days after the faint. Josh only said, “I haven’t eaten,” and Tyler said, “I hope you’re not starving yourself.”

Josh is petrified.

They don’t mention this moment of shame.

Tyler keeps disappearing and coming back, he strums the strings and sings quietly; the lyrics are terrifying, that _now I’ve_ _got a_ _new identity, looks like me, but it’s unseen._ Josh puts a pillow onto his head and sleeps until the noon. There’s a rustling sound coming from the side of his bed; this might be a part of his nightmare, Josh blinks rapidly to clear his vision.

Josh either left the door unlocked or Tyler is just way too sneaky.

“This is for your blood sugar,” Tyler puts a big pack of Oreos onto Josh’s blanket.

“Th-thanks.”

Tyler nods, way too serious.

“Get well, man.”

The tension between them is still tangible.

 

***

It takes one more month to find out that Tyler wages his war too.

Wrong time, wrong place, and Tyler is shirtless for the first time — Josh sways and flops down onto the couch in the living room while Tyler tries to cover himself with his hoodie. It’s too late, there are the scratches and incisions on both his arms, on his stomach. All red and alive like worms, with the slight crust dried on them. None of these wounds are actually bleeding, but Josh can barely curb the tremor in his limbs. Josh clamps his palm over his mouth; the vertigo is overwhelming, Josh has taken his anxiety meds an hour ago, but they can’t glue the shatters of his psyche together.

The floor is all unsteady.

“Why the fuck are you staring at me? Why?”

Tyler drowns inside his hoodie he’s been stitching up, he yanks the sleeves all the way down to his beaten knuckles.

“I’m… S-sorry,” Josh swallows the lump in his throat. “This is just…”

“Disgusting?” Tyler bristles. “Go to bed.”

Tyler turns away abruptly and rushes down the hallway; it’s the middle of the night, but Josh doesn’t stop him. Again.

The visions from his childhood torment him until the morning.

 

***

“Do you want to… Talk about it?”

“No.”

 

***

Tyler’s clothes get even blacker along with the bags under his sunken eyes. Josh’s blue hair and his multicolored flannels don’t match this mood, as if they’re living in parallel universes; Tyler isolates himself from the exterior world, he stops playing, stops talking. There’s a neon sign board _do not disturb_ on his metaphorical shell.

This is a twisted Groundhog Day.

Josh keeps eating his cheap food, washing it down with equally cheap drinks. It’s getting difficult to plan their budget since he and Tyler don’t have much income. Josh’s eyes are burning after peering into the computer screen for so long, he’s repairing other people’s laptops, but his own machine is as slow as a slug. Three more emails and he’s free, but with this excellent speed it’s gonna take eternity to get the job done. And kill his eyesight. Josh rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, he needs a coffee break. He stretches and steps over the threshold, tripping over Tyler’s backpack in the middle of the hallway.

“Crap, Tyler, look after your damn stuff,” Josh grumbles.

He grabs the backpack with the ukulele peeking out through the zipper and carries it into Tyler’s room. It’s empty.

“Tyler?”

Josh clenches his jaws and tosses the backpack onto Tyler’s unmade bed. Then he spots a thin thread of light seeping through the crack under the bathroom door; the water is turned off, no sounds coming from within, even after the knocking.

“Dude, are you alright?”

Tyler must be just getting dressed after the shower, and Josh shouldn’t be violating his privacy. But no, everything is too quiet, because Tyler is a parasite who’s devouring Josh’s frayed nerves. He’s spreading this depression-induced infection.

Josh slams his shoulder into the door, then once more, then again until the latch surrenders and lets him in. Josh yells and staggers, unable to handle the sight of Tyler’s half naked frame that is just a pile of skin and bones on the floor; his left arm is outstretched, red fluids run out of the two vertical slits where his veins used to be. The walls transform into a grid around the crime scene.

“No, no, please, no,” Josh is clumsy, he slips and falls to his knees. “Tyler, please, wake up.”

Tyler’s blood vessels are full of tear gas that replaces the oxygen now.

Josh feels woozy as he takes his phone out of his shorts’ pocket; his fingers are too clammy to unblock it, he fails a few times before he calls 911. His head won’t stop spinning, nauseating haze obstructs his vision. Josh’s voice is soaked with hysterical notes, he turns the speaker on and screams at the operator that _Jesus Christ,_ _my friend has just committed suicide._

The operator begs Josh to check Tyler’s pulse. It takes some chivalry, dirty blood forms a puddle on the floor, it’s growing, wetting Josh’s bare knees. He screws his eyes shut and touches Tyler’s pale neck, there’s an uncertain throbbing under his fingertips on Tyler’s carotid artery.

“He’s alive. He’s alive!”

Josh barks these words up like a guard dog while Tyler is dying in his delirium. His lips are blue-countured, the blood keeps sprouting out of the lacerations; Josh looks around the bathroom frantically, he’s never seen so much blood since —

He’s been living a very _careful_ life.

He tugs the towel off the rack, once white it’s now almost as black as tar.

Josh’s irrational fear is like a lead on his shoulders. Tyler’s eyelashes flutter, pupils dilated when Josh props his head up onto his lap; Tyler’s rib cage jerks sporadically, and Josh ties the towel around Tyler’s mangled arm, the fabric is permeated in blood in seconds.

“Breathe, please, breathe.”

Josh’s chest is aflame from the weeping he’s keeping inside, terror wraps around his guts like a rope. Tyler is getting colder and colder when the seizures dislocate his joints. Josh’s clothes are rusted; his consciousness slips away, he’s slumping down.

“Mister? Mister, please, stay on the line, the car is on its way —”

But Josh is a coward, he can unclench his fingers and say that it was too late already — all the shapes sharpen before fading to blur, Josh’s nape hair stands on end. He only closes his eyes and imagines that there’s a cat, a ball of fur instead of Tyler’s hair on his thighs, that the tiles are sprinkled with summer rain.

The doorbell rings, Josh’s panic gets more violent.

The razorblade cracks underneath the paramedic’s shoe.

They’re putting Tyler onto the stretcher and mumbling something over their walkie-talkies, too many words, too many codes, and Josh’s legs break underneath him. He huddles into the corner and curls into himself, watching them through his palms cupped over his face, in the gaps between his fingers, then tucking his head between his knees.

Tyler is a deer that’s about to get shot by local hunters, and Josh is six again.

No matter how many efforts they’re putting in, they can’t smoke that night out of his memory — how badly his father’s car drifted, and how badly Josh’s nose was bleeding after hitting his face on the side panel, and how _badly_ the deer cried. It was only a fawn, he could’ve been some Bambi’s brother, but that collision turned him to a trophy. His spilled-out insides, his broken antlers and his sad eyes were a mesmerizing picture; the police and hunters arrived in seconds, and they didn’t warn Josh —

They had to use three bullets to make the deer finally fall asleep.

“Oh, I didn’t see the kid,” the hunter shrugged. “Are you okay, buddy?”

Josh tried to pull at the rifle and take the revenge on the man for making him see the plague, but Josh’s father was stronger than him. Then, luckily, Josh finally blacked out.

This is what Josh lives over and over again, in his dreams, during his panic attacks when he accidentally burns his fingers or when he sees these wildlife documentaries on TV.

Poisonous foam spills out of Tyler’s lips, they have made Josh witness all of it again, preoccupied with Tyler’s bad trip. Josh can’t stay there, he’s paralyzed; he can’t open his eyes until the blood is washed away. Through the onslaught of dizziness, he hears a _what are we supposed to do with this guy?_

“You’re going with us,” young woman pats his back when he lurches forward. “Get up.”

Her plea is mostly an order, given off softly.

Josh obeys, and Tyler is not there anymore.

He’s blind as he steps over the red blots. They live on the second floor, but there are too many stairs now.

Josh vomits onto the asphalt and onto his own gumshoes as soon as they leave the building; the stress rips itself out of his chest, out of his stomach. They don’t wait until he finishes, handing him a paper bag and shoving him into the ambulance car. He only sees a glimpse of Tyler connected to the IV and transparent tubes, and they’re using a defibrillator to get Tyler’s soul back into his body. There’s a _cardiac arrest_ like a verdict and a paramedic repeats these manipulations like an emotionless android. Muscle cramp wrenches Josh’s arm, his wrist hits against the sharp side of the portable table, his skin is bruised, injured, blood gathers on the edges of the wound. Josh’s brain twists itself inside out.

“I need to get out, I need —” Josh heaves again, the nurse holds the paper bag for him.

Blood keeps dripping off his arm like oil, referring to the day when he scraped his knee during PE in the second grade and fainted. Out of the corner of his eye, Josh sees the needle being inserted into the crook of his elbow.

The chair he’s sitting on turns to the swings.

 

***

Fresh bed sheets are too scratchy.

“You’ve had a massive nervous breakdown, we had to resort to a diazepam injection to decrease your… Anxiety,” doctor Kowalski says.

His reddish beard looks way too stylish.

The bandage on Josh’s hand is a notch; he’s freezing, teeth chattering, and his mind is a hurricane.

“How’s… Tyler?”

“Your appropriate call helped us save his life, Mr. Dun,” the doctor gives him a respectful glance over the glasses. “His blood loss was critical, but we performed a blood transfusion. The patient’s condition is stabilized now.”

The bottles of chemicals under Tyler’s mattress weren’t just his meds.

Josh nods, and nods, and nods until his head goes all dizzy again. He should be relieved, but instead, he’s queasy all the time. He and Tyler got admitted into the same hospital, in different departments. They are still neighbors. Josh’s memory is fuzzy, but he has clearly said that he’s got a hemophobia once they arrived to the emergency room, to the white halls and white coats. They led Josh to the ward and made sure the syringes and needles were out of his reach. Now, they’re constantly checking his blood pressure.

This place can’t be his shelter.

“Do you want to visit him?”

The doctor’s question is a formality, but Josh shakes his head furiously.

“I’m gonna throw up if I ever see him again.”

 

***

He stays in a psychiatric unit until they remove the band-aid from his hand, until the red flakes fall off his skin. Josh now has to start his treatment from the very beginning, but mostly he’s just seeking for the harmony with the world outside the hospital building — as a man in his twenties, he’s only learning to live. The day Josh gets discharged the nurse offers him to meet Tyler again, because _you guys are roommates, and Mr. Joseph is gonna go through a long rehabilitation process after all the withdrawals he’s experienced._

“No, thanks,” Josh says. He used to avoid the triggers, and Tyler now is the biggest one.

Josh hasn’t deleted his psychologist’s phone number.

Their landlord has arranged a cleanup in the bathroom, Josh gets these news from the next door grandma. If Tyler’s therapy is gonna be exhausting, then Josh has to surround himself with a bubble that would protect him from the gossips and forked tongues. The hallway is neat and pristine, it smells like air freshener. Like lavender or a gamut of wildflowers that makes Josh’s mouth fill up with bile again. The bathroom is closed, the handle is so shiny and touch-friendly — it was probably that _specific_ cleaning service that agreed to perform their task in a place where a young freak was about to take his own life. This might be included into their rent bill as well.

Josh doesn’t own that much stuff, so he darts out of the room that’s not his anymore with a backpack and a suitcase; he should’ve pinned the note to the fridge for Tyler, but his hands are still slack. His PTSD is his shadow that’s about to ingest him.

He leaves his toothbrush in that cursed room.

 

***  

This is what the whole _moving on_ term means. Even though Josh’s subconscious keeps calling it a gigantic leap backwards.

He rents a one bedroom bachelor’s den on the opposite edge of town; he changes his phone number and makes his social media accounts private. He’s got a golden retriever, his personal emotional support puppy Jim; Jim is frisky, full of optimistic energy, and he doesn’t watch bloody horror movies non-stop. He doesn’t quote the Bible. Or he doesn’t jack off while watching porn in his room; Jim is nothing Tyler is or ever was, and Josh doubts his sanity, because seriously — he’s comparing his dog to Tyler.

Josh keeps contacting his psychologist, he’s getting appointments once a week, and _yes, I’m doing just fine._ Autotrainings and group therapies are his new friends, close friends. He’s taking long walks with Jim every morning and every evening, jogging but occasionally jolting awake to the nightmares. All of them are about Tyler now.

It’s been almost four months since the incident.

When Jim brings him a set of keys that’s not his own, Josh wants to throw it out of the window. He was packing his bags hastily, and their landlord didn’t remind Josh to return the keys since their sudden hospital admission had changed all of their plans. Metal burns Josh’s fingers, he’s about to start hyperventilating again; Jim perks up and wiggles his tail, nuzzling Josh’s shin.

“We need to get this thing to where it belongs, boy.”

Jim agrees. They’re gonna have to get rid of the last brick of their past life.

 

***

Josh’s head hurts, he might not be able to block out all the memories now. And Jim is just his companion, too small to dive into the adults’ problems; he growls, he keeps playing with Josh’s shoelaces when Josh is about to kick the keys underneath the rag and scoot away. Josh shushes the puppy, but he barks sonorously, ruining Josh’s poor conspiration. Josh’s shoe is probably way too appealing for Jim, he can’t take his toe out of Jim’s mouth; Josh is about to lose his footing, he clings to the door frame, and his elbow slams into the door with a loud _bang._

His pose is awkward when he hears the footsteps.

The keys dig into Josh’s palm, the lock clicks.

“Hey.”

“H-hello?”

When Josh said that meeting Tyler again was gonna make him puke, he didn’t mean he would have been happy to see a blonde girl wearing one of Tyler’s black hoodies instead of him. _Grouplove,_ Josh has blacklisted all of their songs.

“The keys,” Josh says dryly.

The girl frowns.

“What?”

“Take them.”

Josh puts the keys into her palm before the girl retracts her hand.

“Oh,” she nods so emotionally her messy ponytail slaps her cheek. “Tyler gave me his keys when his parents asked me to move there. Thank you, wanna come in?” she thrashes like a bird strewn with flour. “Tyler’s not home, but… By the way, I’m Jen —”

This hallway smells like a bakery now.

Jen doubles over to pet Jim’s head but seems to change her minds drastically when Jim is about to give her his paw like a well-trained boy.

“Bye, Jen,” Josh interrupts her babbling. “You’ve got your own keys now.”

She is confused.

Jim keeps looking back as Josh makes him run down the stairs, and the last bridge is burning as bright as the Hell’s fire. He sits on the bench a few blocks away from that horrible apartment building, and well, Tyler still needs a partner to pay the bills with.    

Jen’s eyes’ color matches Josh’s hair.

Not even Jim can save him from a panic attack that night.   

 

***

Josh jogs until pain coils up under his ribs like a snake. It’s a very humid evening, and Jim still hasn’t learned how to dial 911 only using his nose.

“I’m fine, Jim, I’m fine,” Josh gasps. Jim is now big enough to lick Josh’s face as he stands up, heavy paws rest against Josh’s collarbones. “I’m fine.”

This is now the therapy works, this is how lying works. This is how Josh turns to the brick wall not to see a lanky figure limping across the park. It might be just a phantom, just like a metallic smell that hits Josh’s nostrils again. Tyler prefers either basements or roofs. There’s nothing in between, it can’t be him; not his old self, at least.

“Hey,” his whisper is louder than the scream. “We need to talk.”

This is childish, Josh tugs at Jim’s leash. He increases his pace, but Tyler mentally sucker punches him.

“I’m clean.”

Josh’s therapist says he has to control his breathing to prevent all the faints. He needs to start the cycle not to fall into the nearest bushes, he keeps walking on autopilot, and Jim whines when Tyler speaks again.

“I just... I want to thank you, I never had a chance to tell you that I’m happy to be alive.”

Tyler’s voice is calm and low; he’s gotten even skinnier, he’s still carrying his ukulele in his half unzipped backpack. Josh’s chest is hollow, he’s drained again, his trauma might get back in full swing any moment. He stops, he leans against the street lamp and counts his inhales and exhales again until static noises in his ears dissipate. Tyler wears his overstretched hood on, Josh gets all the snapbacks collected — as if this might protect them from intrusive thoughts. But they’re eating Josh just like moth eats through his shirts.   

“I’m singing at the bars,” Tyler continues. “Are you still working for that IT service?”

Josh nods. Tyler is just a bug in his personal life’s code, there should’ve been wires and microschemes under his crippled skin. It’s been almost six months. Six months of recovery or six months of nothing.

“You nearly died, Tyler.”

Tyler adjusts the strap on his shoulder.   

“That was an accident.”

“Two fucking vertical cuts.”

“Still an accident.”

Panic attack doesn’t happen, but Josh is still as alert as Jim. Tyler notices it.

“You’ve got a dog, cool.”

“You’ve got Jen.”

“Sorry?” Tyler rubs his ear. “Oh, right. She moved in with her _significant one._ I moved out.”

Josh wants to move ahead, but Tyler hits the “rewind” button.

Josh grabs him by the sleeve.

“Show me your scars.”

Tyler falters.

“Are you sure?”

Josh doesn’t answer, slowly rolling up the cuff until he sees white wrinkled lines on Tyler’s forearm, stitch-marks healed but still conspicuous; there’s a tattoo around his wrist, three circles punctuated with dots. It’s crystal clear that Tyler has found new addictions to overlap the others, Josh just has to dig a little deeper. This is just a test, the lines are bloodless. Josh would’ve gotten his arm tattooed only under a general anesthesia.

“You know,” Josh coughs up. “I might not be able to save you if something like this happens again.”

“I’m not gonna force you,” Tyler says.

“What did you see? On the other side,” Josh clutches at Tyler’s collar and shakes him. “When your heart stopped. I was so… So _damn_ scared,” he spits, he needs a repentance, but Tyler is a good pretender.

His behavior never matches Josh’s expectations.

“Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul,” Tyler removes Josh’s hands off his clothes. Gently. “But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.”*

“So. There was Hell then?” Josh almost wants to get a _yes._

“There was nothing,” Tyler replies. “Just a pitch black matter.”

Tyler’s sins are contagious. His lips are venomous, his cynicism fills him in; his suicide attempt was just an _accidental_ crime against himself — Josh doesn’t buy it. It doesn’t matter how many songs he’s written about salvation, blasphemous things he believes in will always be the ones to make him hurt himself. But his double-sideness is so sincere Josh wants to listen to him sing of a greater love one day. Tyler is an imposter, but Josh doesn’t see the point in denying his weakness in front of him.

“I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

Tyler doesn’t ask him to tell his story, checkmating him with his own instead.

“I once got bitten by my neighbor’s rottweiler. Got five stitches on my calve.”

“Oh God.”

It takes a minute for Josh to push his lungs to work, and Tyler is here, his palm slides up and down Josh’s back while he’s hugging Jim. He’s got sharp teeth, but he’s only using his tongue to leave wet trails on Josh’s chin to wipe his sadness away. Then Jim chews on the hem of Tyler’s hoodie, and maybe Josh is a little in awe.  

“Jim’s growing up too fast,” Josh says and takes a tennis ball out of his jacket’s pocket. “I’m thinking about getting a bigger apartment one day.”

Tyler looks him in the face and says —

“Where’s your home, Josh? I’m looking for a rent-partner.”

When Jim runs to fetch the ball, Tyler watches him with no fear in his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> *Matthew 10:28  
> \---  
> the deer story is based on real events. hope that guy is in a better world now.  
> \---  
> song references: lord of glory///clear  
> \---  
> SPECIAL thanks to pantaloonwarrior (((u know bro)))


End file.
